Clean or low emission coal technologies typically depend on digging coal out of the ground, transporting it, then gasifying it above -ground prior to Carbon Capture, (Please see diagram below).
However Carbon Energy's major advantage is that the UCG process already converts the coal into a gas, eliminating the need to do the first 3 steps .The result being that, the UCG process can reduce clean coal production costs between approximately 30 % and 50%, plus deliver a more environmentally friendly method of power generation than the traditional coal fired plants currently in operation.
What are we doing right now?
Step 1
Carbon energy have been producing syngas from the UCG process since November 2008 and are now in the process of building a 5MW power station at our Bloodwood Creek location. We expect to be producing electricity from our gas in the first quater of 2010.This will be the first power plant in Australia to fuelled by UCG syngas.
Step 2
The company is currently scoping stage 2 an additional 20MW power plant at Bloodwood Creek and this facility will incorporates Carbon Capture and storage technologies.
Progress towards what will be Australia’s first demonstration of Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology took a major step forward in July (2009) with the signing of an agreement between Carbon Energy and Queensland ZeroGen.
The agreement signals the first phase of a CO2 injection test program which will see Carbon Energy combine their successful Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) technology with ZeroGen’s techniques for CO2 injection.
ZeroGen is developing the world’s first commercial-scale demonstration of another low-emissions coal technology - and has been conducting a highly advanced CO2 storage exploration program in the Northern Denison Trough (NDT), near Springsure in Central Queensland, since 2006.
Captured CO2 from the Carbon Energy UCG plant will be transported by ZeroGen for injection and storage up to two kilometres underground in the NDT, which has already been found to have suitable geology to safely and securely store large quantities of CO2.
This test will demonstrate the technical viability of producing low emission electricity from UCG . Successfully combining Carbon Energy’s UCG technology and ZeroGen’s CO2 injection capability means that coal-fired electricity emissions could be reduced by up to two thirds.
Subject to successfully concluding our scope and with continued positive support from Government (both State and Federal) could see Carbon Energy be one of the first Australian companies to deliver a 'Clean Coal Project'.